The U.S. Recover program, set up in July 2022 to identify the causes of long COVID, find biomarkers of disease and discover new therapeutic targets, is now preparing to move to its next phase and begin testing potential treatments in a multi-arm, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. But with 200 different symptoms, and limited understanding of relevant system-level pathological targets, there are significant hurdles to be overcome.
A lot of focus has been put on targeting T-cell immunoreceptor with Ig and ITIM domains (TIGIT) for HIV infection treatment, but no attention has been given to targeting its ligand, CD155.
Antiretroviral (ARV) therapy suppresses HIV, but viral replication rebounds once treatment is discontinued. The redistribution of lipids in the plasma membrane to form microdomains is crucial for viral entry and biogenesis during HIV infection. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine found neutral sphingomyelinase 2 (nSMase2) to be a key component of the late stages of HIV viral assembly and maturation; they hypothesized that nSMase2 inhibitors could help avoid viral rebound.
Immorna Biotechnology Co. Ltd. raised nearly $100 million in series A+ and A++ financing rounds to speed up the clinical development and commercialization of its RNA-based therapeutics. Founded in 2019, Immorna develops therapeutics and vaccines based on its RNA platforms, including conventional, self-replicating and circular RNA.
To date, there is a lack of consensus in anal cancer screening. DNA methylation markers zing finger protein 582 (ZNF582) and achaete-scute homolog 1 (ASCL1) have been associated with anal intraepithelial neoplasia (AIN3) and anal carcinoma risk in people with HIV infection.
Autoantibodies are typically not good news. But a group of researchers from Bellinzona, Switzerland, have observed that the presence of autoantibodies against chemokines, a special class of cytokines, is associated with mild disease and less risk of developing long COVID. “Our hypothesis was that antibodies to chemokines, if they existed, would also be associated with a negative outcome of the disease. But, what we found, in fact, was the exact opposite of what we were predicting,” Davide Robbiani, director of the Institute for Research in Biomedicine, told BioWorld.
Bugworks Research India Pvt. Ltd. has identified oxazolidinone compounds acting as DNA gyrase and DNA topoisomerase IV (Escherichia coli) inhibitors reported to be useful for the treatment of bacterial infections, in particular gram-positive and gram-negative, as well as viral, fungal and protozoal infections.